


Nine Lives

by KillerKueen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:25:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9114913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillerKueen/pseuds/KillerKueen
Summary: Belle's cat goes missing. She finds him in a place she didn't expect.





	

Her bedspread wasn’t wrinkled. The faded yellow fabric was as pristine as it was when Belle had last made her bed a little over two years ago, that last day before she fled to grad school in California (the fall weather had been breezy, and she had the window open for as long as she could, knowing that it would be a long time before her childhood room was aired out again). **  
**

Belle frowned. Her bedspread wasn’t wrinkled and there was no cat hair clumped from where her cat had been sleeping. There hadn’t been any on the couch, either. She got down on her hands and knees, pulling up the side of the fabric so she could look under her bed. The poor thing had gotten into the habit of sometimes hiding there, she knew.

But all she found was old boxes and plastic tubs, and no space for a large tabby cat.

Belle got back to her feet. She walked down the hall to peek into her father’s room, but Toulouse had never ventured there, and as such, wasn’t on her father’s bed, either.

Her next stop was the laundry room, where he liked to sleep in the clean laundry. Only there wasn’t any clean laundry for him to sleep in at the moment. Belle was just about to turn off the light when the space next to the washer caught her eye. Notable only in that it was empty.

A sense of dread started to tingle along her spine. Toulouse’s litter box was gone.

>^..^<

“Dad,” she called when she entered her father’s flower shop. “Dad, I need to talk to you.”

Moe came out of the back, apron tied around his wide frame. “Belle, I thought you weren’t getting in until tomorrow.”

“Where’s Tully?” she asked, not bothering to mention she had taken an earlier flight.

Moe shrugged, the beginnings of a frown starting to cloud his face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s not at the house.”

“Why did you even stop by if you don’t want to live there anymore,” he grumbled, pulling at the strings of the apron harder than was necessary.

“I went to the house because I wanted to take Toulouse to my new apartment,” Belle said through gritted teeth. “Now where is he?”

Moe shrugged again. “Clearly he’s not at home.”

Belle forced herself to take deep breaths. It wasn’t fair that her dad was still so bitter over her refusal to marry Gaston and her ensuing skipping out of town for two whole years in order to avoid the both of them.

“Dad, just tell me.”

“I didn’t think you’d notice.”

Instead of snapping that clearly he was as wrong about that as everything else in her life, she simply stared him down. Her father always cracked under pressure.

After a few moments of Belle’s steely, unamused gaze, Moe finally said, “I took him to the shelter, alright?”

“The _shelter_?”

“How was I supposed to know if you’d ever come back?” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Besides, he was so old, anyway, and you know he never liked me.”

“So you just _threw him away_?” Belle yelled.

“Don’t think of it like that,” Moe pleaded.

“How long has he been at the shelter?”

“Since the Valentine’s day before last,” Moe admitted. “It was a rough holiday without you here to help out—”

“Don’t you dare blame me,” Belle said quietly. It being the beginning of August now, that meant that her cat, her old and grumpy, precious boy, had been in a shelter for eighteen months. The blood was starting to pound in her ears.

The shelter was open until six o’clock on weekdays. When Belle looked at the clock hanging by the register she saw that if she ran she could make it before they closed.

“Where are you going?” her father asked when she turned for the door.

“Where do you think?”

“Belle, honey, it was so long ago, he’s probably already been destro—”

“Don’t. You. Dare,” she hissed, to angry to think of anything better to say. She made sure to slam the door when she left.

By the time Belle got to the shelter, David Nolan had just locked the doors.

“Please,” she called, breathless from her frantic running. “David, please.”

At the sound of her voice, he turned. “Belle,” he said in surprise. “I didn’t realize you were back in town.”

“Toulouse,” she said, waving her hand. It’d take too long to fully explain. “Is he here?”

David blinked, about to ask her to repeat herself, when suddenly his eyes lit in understanding. “Oh, you mean your cat.”

“Is he here?” Belle insisted.

“Belle,” David started, and she immediately knew she wasn’t going to like what he was going to say next. “Your father brought him in nearly two years ago.”

“Eighteen months is not two years,” she said in a shaking voice. Her heart, which had just started to slow down, starting pumping again. She really didn’t think she could handle it if he told her Toulouse had been put down.

The thought made her shudder. Tooly wasn’t _that_ old, and surely in a town as small as Storybrooke, there was plenty of room in a shelter for him.

“You’re right, it was eighteen months, which is still a long time.” David spoke slowly, like he was talking to a spooked horse about to kick. He was probably used to dealing with frantic pet owners, being the closest thing to a vet in town.

“David, please don’t tell me that…that Tooly…”

His hand reached out and squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. “Tooly is still alive. Don’t worry—he was only with me a couple weeks.”

Belle felt dizzy from the relief that shot through her. It didn’t last long, however.

“You mean someone adopted him? Who?”

David’s calm mask started to crack, and he shifted uncomfortably. “Your dad said you weren’t coming back, that you were giving him up, that you understood.”

“Who has him?” Belle demanded.

“I didn’t have any reason not to believe him, not when you left like you did—”

“David.” He shifted his feet, hesitation clear on his face. “ _David_!”

“Mr. Gold,” he finally blurted. “Toulouse was adopted by Mr. Gold.”

She could hear him saying something else, but Belle had stopped listening. She turned and ran back the way she came, taking no notice of David yelling after her.

>^..^<

Everyone knew where Mr. Gold lived. It was by far the gaudiest house in Storybrooke, with it’s pink color and Victorian accents. It was also the largest, but she refused to let it’s intimidating size turn her away. She could see a light on through the front window and his large black cadillac was in the driveway. Without stopping to think about it, she marched up the porch steps and knocked.

It wasn’t until the door opened to reveal Mr. Gold himself that Belle thought maybe she should have taken a moment to think about what she was going to say. At the very least, a moment for her to compose herself. She felt sweaty and sticky from running all over town, and there was a stitch in her side.

“Miss French,” he said in his deep brogue. “What a surprise.”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. ‘Hello, I’m here to demand the return of the cat you opened your home to when he was abandoned’ just wouldn’t do, no matter how accurate. Now that she thought about it, it was unfair of her to demand anything from Mr. Gold, because he did just that: took Tooly in when he was abandoned. It still didn’t quiet the voice in Belle’s head that insisted no one could take as good care of him as she could.

It didn’t help matters that the usually impeccably dressed man was currently sans jacket, waistcoat and tie, with the top three buttons of his shirt were undone. She never would have thought a mere glimpse of collarbone could be so distracting.

“Can I help you?” he asked, patient despite her noiseless floundering.

Finding it hard to look into his eyes, Belle looked past him, into his entranceway, and then past that into the living room, where a glass of what looked like scotch sat on a coffee table. Next to the table was a chair with a book open and facedown on the arm, presumably placed there when Gold had stood up to answer the door. In the seat of the chair, curled into a ball and basking in the warm spot Gold left behind, was Toulouse.

“Tooly,” Belle cried.

The ball of orange fur lifted it’s head, ears perking at the sound of her voice.

Belle didn’t pause as she brushed past Mr. Gold and barrelled into his living room. She dropped to her knees in front of the chair and scooped Tully into her arms, the cat only giving a slight mewl of protest.

The tears finally came then, and Belle knew she must have looked ridiculous, kneeling between a half-full glass of scotch and a leather chair that smelled like something reminiscent of cologne crying into her cat’s soft fur, but as Tully started purring and rubbing his face against her chin, she really couldn’t find the energy to care.

She only looked up when she heard the sound of a tray being set down on the coffee table. She hadn’t even heard him close the front door.

“Sugar, Miss French?” Mr. Gold asked, taking a seat on the couch. “Or milk?”

She rubbed at her face, self-conscious of the tear tracks and snot. God, she was an idiot. It was a wonder Gold hadn’t thrown her out on her ears, or called the sheriff. She could only look at the full tea service he had prepared, at a loss for words. Still.

“Unless you’d rather have the scotch?” he gestured to the glass still on the table, and Belle couldn’t help but smile. Well, in for a penny, as it were.

“A splash of milk would be great,” she sniffed. “You wouldn’t happen to have lemon, would you?”

“What do you take me for? A barbarian?”

That got a laugh out of her, no matter how watery it sounded.

After Mr. Gold prepared her cup, wedge of lemon and all, he slid it over. Belle grew even more self conscious from her seat on the floor, arms still around her cat. At least Tooly was happy to see her.

“You must think I’m crazy,” she murmured, watching as he made himself a cup of tea (two sugars. No milk. Slice of lemon).

“Nonsense. It’s truly amazing the attachments we make with our pets.”

Since it looked like she wasn’t about to be kicked out, Belle climbed into the vacant armchair. She nearly started crying again when Tully curled up across her thighs, head resting on her stomach, just like he always used to do.

“You say that from experience?”

“I’ve known a sheep dog or two in my time,” he admitted.

Belle nodded. “I’m sorry for just barging in here.”

“As I said,” Gold shrugged, as if distraught women forced their way into his home regularly.

“Sheep dogs, huh? So you’re not a cat person?” she asked when Gold said nothing else, and instead sipped at his tea.

“He doesn’t shed,” he said, as if that explained everything. “And he doesn’t claw up my furniture, not to mention he is an excellent leg warmer.”

Belle smiled. “He is that. He really mellowed as he got older. He was such a handful when he was younger.”

“Was he really?”

“Oh, yes. I used to have to carry a pillow and a spray bottle with me around the house because he’d spring out of nowhere and attack my feet,” Belle laughed, remembering. “Corners were his favorite place to hide.”

“Good thing he grew out of that,” Gold said. “I already have one mangled leg. How old is he, anyway? David could only guess.”

“You mean my father didn’t know,” Belle sighed, her mouth twisting. “I found him about a month after my mother passed. He was under the oak tree at the park, hiding under the leaves, just as alone as I was.” Belle took a tentative sip of her tea. It was perfect, just how she liked it.

“I thought for sure my mom had sent him to me. He could fit into the palm of my hand if he had bothered to sit still long enough,” she smiled fondly, petting the soft fur in her lap. “That was sixteen years ago.”

“Sixteen, huh? Old boy.”

Belle nodded. It had been like magic, finding Toulouse in that park. Like fate. Her father had checked out since her mother’s accident, and Belle felt like she was drifting in an ocean of darkness. When she took that bedraggled mess of orange fur home, when it curled into her bed that night after eating an entire can of tuna and taking a hot bath, Belle felt like maybe there was a light in the darkness after all.

“So, what about you?” Belle asked, still stroking Tooly’s fur.

“What about me?”

“Why would you adopt a sixteen-year-old cat?”

“He was hardly sixteen when I adopted him,” Gold sniffed.

“Fourteen and a half, then,” Belle amended with a laugh.

Gold shrugged. “I was at the shelter collecting the rent when I saw him. Pitiful thing, locked in that cage.” Gold took a swallow of his tea. “I decided I had one good deed saved up this decade so I brought him home and we’ve been fast friends ever since.”

“Really?” Belle asked in amazement.

Gold laughed. “God, no.”

“Oh,” Belle said in surprise. “I was about to say—he’s rather prickly around strangers. Always has been.”

“Yes, when my son came to visit a few weeks ago he made the mistake of trying to pet him.”

Belle felt her eyebrows rise in surprise. “Oh, no. What happened?”

“Neal saw him curled on the couch, and before I could even say, ‘wait, don’t, you’re going to need welding gloves if you want to even think about touching him,’ Neal’s hand was in ribbons. No, go ahead, laugh,” Gold assured her when Belle slapped a hand over her mouth to hold in the giggles. “He was mostly offended that Tooly preferred me, I think,” he said with a chuckle. “Once he was bandaged, of course.”

“But you and Toulouse get along well now?”

“Well, I _did_ rescue him from the cage he was in. Don’t mistake me, David runs a fine facility, but no cat likes being confined. I admit it was a bumpy first couple weeks, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find a cat that doesn’t warm up to you after the amount of catnip mice I’ve given him and salmon dinners he’s eaten.”

“You spoiled him,” Belle said.

“I am not ashamed to admit it,” he said, looking at the cat in her lap fondly. “He’s a good little beast.”

Belle had to agree with that.

The silence stretched, but it never really became uncomfortable. Mr. Gold readily refilled her cup when she finished her first.

It wasn’t until Belle turned to the book still on the arm of the chair that she spoke again. “Oh, _Beyond Sing the Woods_. How are you liking it so far?”

“A little dry, but I enjoy the ideas.”

“Yes, I found the lack of flowery language to be very true to the themes.”

Gold chuckled. Belle was really starting to enjoy that sound. “Spoken like a true librarian,” he said.

Belle perked up. “You’ve heard?”

“Of course. You returning to take over the library is the most exciting thing to happen since Miss Swan was promoted to sheriff.”

“As much as I’ll miss Mrs. Potts, her retirement came at an amazing time,” Belle said.

“Indeed. I assume you’ll be moving into the apartment above the library.”

“Ah. Yes, I will be.” Belle laughed, suddenly nervous. “That’s what started all of this, you know.”

“All of what?”

“My frantic running around. I stopped by my dad’s so I could pick Tooly up and take him home with me, but lo and behold, Tully wasn’t there. I ran to the shelter, and that’s where David told me you had adopted him.”

“I thought the city didn’t allow pets in their rented properties.”

Belle smiled innocently. “They don’t,” she shrugged. “But I figured if I was discrete, it wouldn’t matter. Sixteen is awfully old for a cat, after all, and I just wanted him with me.”

“Ah,” Gold nodded. “Well, as much as I’m willing to encourage flagrant disregard for lease agreements, I’m afraid I’ve grown quite fond of him,” Gold confessed softly. “I would be quite sad to see him go.”

And there it was, the thing Belle had been dreading.

“I’d fight you on this one, but I think I’d lose,” she said sadly. Tooly was still purring, his body so warm and familiar. At least Belle could take comfort in the fact that he clearly had a good home with Mr. Gold.

And who would have ever thought it—Mr. Gold sharing a cup of tea with her after she forced her way into his home to abduct what used to be her cat. Belle was certain no one would believe her.

“I’ll tell you what, Miss French,” he said, placing his teacup back on the tray. “I’ll give you permission to come by at any point to see Mr. Toulouse. He seems to have missed you, and I dare say he deserves a second person to spoil him rotten.”

Belle’s arms closed around Tully. “You might regret that offer, Mr. Gold.”

“I could never regret your company,” he said, oddly sincere.

“And what would you get in return? I hear you’re quite the fan of deals,” she pressed.

“Didn’t I just say? I’d get your company. Of course, it would mean you’d also be stuck with mine, which, I assure you, is not quite as lovely.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Gold shrugged.

“Alright, Mr. Gold. You have a deal,” Belle said.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Nine Lives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15750189) by [Paradigmparadoxical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradigmparadoxical/pseuds/Paradigmparadoxical)




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